Confession time: I've never seen The Godfather. (I know.) So when someone recommended the book to me, I decided it was a good opportunity to read the book and then watch the film (one of my favourite ways to experience a story).



The Godfather is the story of the fate of the Corleone family after its patriarch, the eponymous Don Vito Corleone, is shot. His eldest son, Sonny, takes over the family business while the Don is incapacitated, but the ensuing gang war has consequences for the entire family and its network of friends.

I like that the book starts with the wedding of the Don's daughter, Connie Corleone, since it gives us an opportunity to meet most of the main characters, and it also introduces several subplots, which overlap with the main plot in interesting ways. The book moves fluidly between the main plot and the subplots, and between the perspectives of different characters. I quite liked this mode of narration, once I got used to it; I became invested in the subplots as well as the main plot. The method of telling the main story through different perspectives was especially effective for building tension, but the resulting movement forwards and backwards in time could be a little off-putting. If the plot can progress a considerable distance without telling us exactly what happened to a particular character, we probably don't care exactly what happened. However, I did think that the flashbacks were handled well (which isn't always the case).

I liked how vividly the characters were portrayed, even reasonably minor characters, and I loved seeing the Don in action. I enjoyed reading about the family business. My main quarrel with the book was its depiction of women. The way Puzo described women, especially in sexual scenes, was frequently ridiculous. It took me out of the story, and made me less patient with the way the female characters are treated (and written), which otherwise I might have borne better; after all, I'm not reading this book for realism. It also wasn't just that the male characters are misogynistic, which I can live with, but that the narrator imposes misogyny on certain scenes. It undermines the careful individualisation of the male characters when they all - at points - sound the same.

For this reason, I'm torn between three and four stars. But, since I raced through the last half in one night, I'll be generous and go with four. Now, onto the film!